Barack Obama extols Steve Jobs's vision

President Barack Obama mourned the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs on Wednesday, heralding the tech visionary as “among the greatest of American innovators.”

Jobs was “brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it,” Obama said in a statement two hours after Apple announced that its former CEO had died at 56 after years of battling pancreatic cancer. “There may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented” — whether a Mac, an iPhone or an iPad.

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POLITICO 44

Jobs’s death is particularly poignant for Obama, a longtime fan of Apple products. He’s been spotted using an iPad, participated in the first presidential Twitter town hall using a MacBook Pro and listens to music on an iPod. (And, in fact, he caused some controversy in 2009 when he gave Queen Elizabeth II an iPod; some Brits said it was déclassé.)

In an interview this week with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos, Obama said his new iPad came straight from the top at Apple. “Steve Jobs actually gave it to me, a little bit early,” Obama said. “It was cool. I got it directly from him.”

White House aides say Obama has long admired Jobs.

Obama saw Jobs as “someone whose story is written only in America,” a senior administration official said Wednesday. “He shared a commitment with Jobs to find the next entrepreneurs.”

Obama had a recent discussion with Jobs about advanced manufacturing, the official said. “It had an impact on the president and resulted in the president asking his Jobs Council to work with government on a project to graduate and train 10,000 engineers” that would bring the total to about 130,000 annual graduates, the official said.

Last month, another White House aide told POLITICO that Obama “obviously has a deep respect for [Jobs]. He trust and respects his opinions.”

Obama’s campaign staff mourned Jobs’s death, too, posting on the @BarackObama Twitter account: “Rest in peace, Steve Jobs. From all of us at #Obama2012, thank you for the work you make possible every day — including ours.”

Obama’s supporters embraced Apple during his long-shot bid for president in the 2008 primary, depicting former first lady Hillary Clinton as an outdated PC and Obama as the hip new Mac. The narrative was cemented in a 75-second Web video, assembled by an Obama fan, that cast Clinton as “Big Brother” in homage to Apple’s pioneering “1984” ad.

In his statement, Obama celebrated Jobs’s imagination.

“By building one of the planet’s most successful companies from his garage, he exemplified the spirit of American ingenuity,” Obama said. “By making computers personal and putting the Internet in our pockets, he made the information revolution not only accessible, but intuitive and fun. And by turning his talents to storytelling, he has brought joy to millions of children and grownups alike.”

“Steve was fond of saying that he lived every day like it was his last. Because he did, he transformed our lives, redefined entire industries, and achieved one of the rarest feats in human history: he changed the way each of us sees the world,” Obama said.

“Michelle and I send our thoughts and prayers to Steve’s wife Laurene, his family, and all those who loved him.”

A politician -- in this case Obama -- couldn't be more different than Jobs. The politician takes, while Jobs gave the world one life-enhancing product after another. The politician kills, while Jobs was devoted to creative and pleasurable ways of living. The politician is a social parasite, while Jobs infused life with excitement, grandeur, and meaning. It is a shame to soil the memory of Steve Jobs by allowing politicians to attach themselves to his corpse.

How stupid and wrong are you guys. Steve Jobs inspiration is in the 1960s counterculture movement. He is as liberal as liberals get. Liberal aren't against millionaires. They are against tax frauds and credit default swaps of bankers. Steve Jobs is a liberal in his own words. His biological father was Abdulfatta Jandali and dated Joan Baez. He believed in science and that the future forward is through green energy.

You morons.. u made it political when need not be. You opened your big mouths without knowing the facts. Typical. Get an education.

That's right. Jobs' biological father was Muslim. Jobs was as liberal as they come. What difference does that make? Well, I'll take what Steve Jobs has done for this country and the world any day over Sarah Palin.

How strange that Apple is building a vast new headquarters in Cupertino to house all those exported jobs. Fact is, easily found online, that the highest proportion of value in Apple products remains in the U.S. Because the law requires that a product assembled in a country be labeled as "made" in that country. So, while a small percentage of the value of Apple products goes to China, they must say "Made in China." This is explained in an article about the manufacture of the iPod. Who Benefits Most From The iPod Being Made Overseas? Apple And Its Knowledge Workers http://www.manufacturingnews.c... This fact doesn't appease the bigots, of course, who think that Americans have more right to feed, clothe, and house themselves and their families than people in other countries.

The untimely death of Steven Paul “Steve” Jobs after a heroic battle against pancreatic cancer at the far too young age of 56 represents an incalculable loss for America and the world.

A technological, innovative genius who has been rightfully compared to Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, even to Leonardo DaVinci, Jobs deserves all those accolades. He transformed how we communicate, compute, and think. He and the technological marvels he would have introduced will be sorely missed.

What won’t be missed is the politicizing of the circumstances of his birth.

Almost as unfortunate as his passing is the media’s studied effort, not to imagine a world without Steve Jobs’ countless contributions which imagining has been explored in depth, but not to imagine a world without Steve Jobs. He came close to never being born.

Fox News was the only member of the media to dare mention the proximity he came to being aborted fifty six years before his life began and Fox has been pilloried for that mention.

In brief, Jobs’ biological parents, Joanne Schieble, an American grad student and Abdulfattah John Jandali, a Syrian Muslim immigrant, didn’t want a child for a variety of reasons and considered aborting the future genius. They scrapped that option, also for a variety of reasons, and chose instead to place their baby for adoption. He was adopted and reared by Paul and Clara Jobs who encouraged his ingenuity. The rest is history.

That history cannot be refuted anymore than it can be refuted that had Joanne Schieble and Abdulfattah John Jandali decided aborting their baby wasn’t the proper path to follow. The extreme leftist organization, MediaMatters.com, differed, implicitly on the birth parents’ decision, explicitly on Fox News decision “to use his death to try to score political points.”

Two days after his death, in a snarky article titled, “In Steve Jobs Eulogy, Fox Tries to Score Political Points,” George Soros’ Media Matters didn’t precisely spell out which political points were scored on Fox’s “The Five” but presumably was suggesting that the contentious issue of abortion is a political issue.

Except to the left wing, abortion is no more a matter of politics than life itself. However, as conservative writer Ann Coulter has aptly pointed out, abortion is a virtual sacrament to liberals and anyone who disagrees with that disturbed view is an evil transgressor of political correctness.